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Programme Information

This is a highly styled 'genre' film which can perhaps be seen as a pastiche of all gangster movies.

Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) is the terse advisor to a crime boss called Leo (Albert Finney). Leo is the boss of an unnamed Prohibition-era town where the police are pawns, and the periodic busts of illicit drinking establishments are no more than a way for one gang to get back at the other.

When Leo and rival boss Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) feud over a bookie who's been cheating Caspar, Tom tries to keep the peace.

Instead he finds himself caught in the middle of a war of ambushes and shifting allegiances where nothing is ever quite what it seems.

This amoral tale which is also, paradoxically, a look at morals within the criminal underworld of the 1930s.

Keywords:

Crime, Drama, Thriller, Gangster, Based-on-Novel, Movie, Film, Movies, Films

Additional Information:

(1990) (USA) (4 Star)

Cast:

Gabriel Byrne	.... Tom Reagan
Marcia Gay Harden	.... Verna
John Turturro	.... Bernie Bernbaum
Jon Polito	.... Johnny Caspar
J.E. Freeman	.... Eddie Dane
Albert Finney	.... Leo

Supporting Cast:

Mike Starr	.... Frankie
Al Mancini	.... Tic-Tac
Richard Woods	.... Mayor Dale Levander
Thomas Toner	.... O'Doole
Steve Buscemi	.... Mink
Mario Todisco	.... Clarence "Drop" Johnson
Olek Krupa	.... Tad
Michael Jeter	.... Adolph
Lanny Flaherty	.... Terry

Directors:

Joel Coen

Writers:

Joel Coen
Ethan Coen

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